Chicago - Tribune Tower - by Hood & Howells

[ddny]

Architect: Raymond Hood and John M. Howells'

Year: 1925

Style: Neo-Gothic

Description: The tower was the winner of an international design competition. It currently houses the Chicago Tribune newspaper headquarters. Raymond Hood was also the architect of the American Radiaor building in NYC.

[Kris]

Adolf Loos: Chicago Tribune competition entry, 1922

Loos's "column", a pun as an early statement of corporate identity.

[Bennie B]

I think the selection committee made the right decision. *

p.s. thanks for the awesome pics ddny!

[dbhstockton]

I'm not so sure about that. *Although Hood's design was innovative and very influential, its neo-gothic design was still relatively safe at the time (1922). *The runner-up, Eliel Saarinen, proposed a design that was a true break from the past and would eventually be more influential on American Art-Deco than Hood's design:

[JMGarcia]

The Saarinen design was considered too harsh, too avante garde, too plain, and that it over emphasized the vertical. The public basically decided it was too weird and ugly to be built.

[Kris]

The ziggurat form was indeed used as a model, especially in NYC. It is however just as classical. The reason for the final selection was probably national favoritism.

[Bennie B]

No comparison, and I can't believe Eliel is related to Eero. *Hood probably won for that top alone. *Saarinen's design looks like Hood's beheaded.

[dbhstockton]

The point is that the contest was in 1922 and at the time there was nothing on earth that looked like either Hood's or Saarinen's design. *Within a decade there would be hundreds of skyscrapers *inspired by this one drawing of Saarinen's. *

[Fabb]

The point is that the contest was in 1922 and at the time there was nothing on earth that looked like either Hood's or Saarinen's design.

You mean no skyscraper on earth.
Hood's design is directly inspired by the Rouen Cathedral, in Normandy.

[dbhstockton]

You are correct, sir.

[TLOZ Link5]

The Butter Tower, right Fabb?

Heh, then this is the other "Cathedral of Commerce."

[Fabb]

Right.
But the "Cathedral of Commerce" is more appropriate for Woolworth.
The Tribune Tower would be the Cathedral of the Press.

[Fabb]

Quote: from TLOZ Link5 on 5:15 pm on April 24, 2003
The Butter Tower, right Fabb?

The name is so weird that I had to do my little research :



And the explanation, in French.

[dbhstockton]

It comes from the yellowish color of the stone used...

Thanks for doing the research, Fabb, but it's of little use unless you translate it for the non-French speaking amung us.

[Fabb]

OK.


According to some people, the name of the Butter Tower would originate in the color of the stone that was used for its construction. Instead of the pierre de Caumont, a white, local stone that was used for the rest of the Cathedral, the Tower was built with a yellowish stone that came from the quarries of the Oise Valley (Saint-Maximin). That color, reminding that of butter, could suggest that the Tower was carved out of a block of butter.
The cost of its constructuction was partially covered by a Lent alms paid for by the inhabitants of Rouen so as to be granted the right to eat butter during that period of fast. The historians generally agree that this alms was the true origin of the particular name of the Tower.


And my homework is done !

I believe the second theory. You all know that the French think with their stomachs, and that butter is a key ingredient of the cuisine normande. So, the inhabitants of Rouen decided to buy the right to eat butter during the fast. How clever ! And productive.

If only nowadays we had to build architectural masterpieces for each of our sins...